Career development and transitions of athletes: the International Society of Sport Psychology Position Stand Revisited

Abstract

This paper is a comprehensive update of the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) Position Stand on career development and transitions of athletes issued a decade ago (Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler, & Côté, 2009, ISSP Position Stand: Career development and transitions of athletes. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 7, 395-412.). A need for updating the 2009 Position Stand has grown out of the increasing inconsistency between its popularity and high citation, on the one hand, and its dated content that inadequately reflects the current status of athlete career research and assistance, on the other. During the last decade, sport psychology career scholars worked on structuring the athlete career knowledge and consolidating it into the athlete career (sport psychology) discourse (ACD). The aims of this paper are to: (1) update the decade-long evolution and describe the current structure of the ACD, (2) introduce recent trends in career development and transition research, (3) discuss emerging trends in career assistance, and (4) summarise in a set of postulates the current status and future challenges of the ACD.

Identity and Cultural Transition: Lessons to Learn from a Negative Case Analysis

“…Jenni's crisis-transition (with no proper support) eventually led her to less successful transition outcomes than she had hoped. Generally, a successful transition outcome is associated with subjective feelings of being adjusted and satisfying basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness (Stambulova et al, 2020), and in a cultural transition (seen as fluid and open-ended), a symbolic exit is characterized by migrant athletes' optimal functioning in novel environments (Ryba et al, 2018). Analysis of Jenni's story revealed that her basic psychological needs were mainly thwarted, especially during her first three years when living with the American family.…”

“…Cultural transition research and practice are uniquely situated in an overlap between the athlete career and the cultural sport psychology discourses, taking insights from both (Ryba et al, 2018;Stambulova et al, 2020). The theoretical perspectives we are going to use for analyzing Jenni's case include: the whole person approach (e.g., Wylleman, 2019) to direct us to consider Jenni's adjustments in sport and non-sport domains (e.g., studies, social and private life); the athletic career transition model (Stambulova, 2003(Stambulova, , 2017 to facilitate understanding of her transition process as an interplay between transition demands, resources, barriers, and coping strategies influencing the transition pathway and successful or less successful outcomes; the cultural transition model (Ryba et al, 2016) to keep in mind conventional cultural transition phases (pre-transition, acute cultural adaptation, and sociocultural adaptation) and consider how the mechanisms of cultural adaptation (social repositioning, negotiation of cultural practices, and meaning reconstruction) were displayed in Jenni's case; the intersectionality perspective on identity (Ronkainen et al, 2016a(Ronkainen et al, , 2016bSchinke et al, 2019) to trace how various dimensions of Jenni's identity were engaged during the transition process and influenced her adjustment.…”

Aplicación del modelo de las 5Cs para la formación de entrenadores: Un ejemplo de práctica basada en la evidencia.

“…En los últimos años, las responsabilidades de esta figura han ido aumentando en número y complejidad, evolucionando desde responsabilizarse únicamente de los aspectos relacionados con las habilidades físicas, técnicas y tácticas necesarias para practicar el deporte en cuestión, hacia responsabilidades más globales y relacionadas con su influencia en el desarrollo holístico de los deportistas (Camiré et al, 2011). Esta evolución en número y en complejidad está relacionada a su vez con la concepción actual de que lo experimentado en el contexto deportivo (i.e., carrera deportiva) forma parte y contribuye en la vida de los deportistas a nivel general (Stambulova et al, 2020;Stambulova y Wylleman, 2014). Específicamente, el Modelo Holístico del Desarrollo de la Carrera Deportiva de Wylleman y Lavallee (2004; revisado posteriormente por Wylleman y Rosier, 2016; Wylleman, 2019), señalan cómo el desarrollo de la carrera deportiva se ve influido por las experiencias vividas en otras esferas (e.g., psicológica, psicosocial, académica-vocacional) de la vida de los deportistas.…”

Transitions in the Careers of Competitive Swimmers: To Continue or Finish with Elite Sport?

“…One of the motives in conducting the research was that researchers favor studying successful athletes and marginalize less successful ones or those in crisis transitions ([ 1 ], p. 20).…”

“…On the one hand an increased recognition of key transitional periods for performance excellence and psychosocial well-being in the life course of an athletic career has been recently observed; on the other hand, there are few studies still on within-career transitions in sport [ 14 , 15 ]. Scholars have broadened their focus beyond career termination, which seems aligned with recommendations on sport transitions [ 1 , 12 ]. Recently, there has been an increased focus also on contextual factors that are related to the athlete’s career development and transitions, i.e., environment and culture [ 16 ].…”